Men, Women, and Boats | Page 4

of extraordinarily
faithful reporting, as one may prefer; but not a few French and Russian
writers have failed to accomplish in two volumes what Crane achieved
in two hundred pages. In the same category is "George's Mother," a
triumph of inconsequential detail piling up with a cumulative effect
quite overwhelming.
Crane published two volumes of poetry--"The Black Riders" and "War
is Kind." Their appearance in print was jeeringly hailed; yet Crane was
only pioneering in the free verse that is today, if not definitely accepted,
at least more than tolerated. I like the following love poem as well as
any rhymed and conventionally metrical ballad that I know:--
"Should the wide world roll away, Leaving black terror, Limitless night,
Nor God, nor man, nor place to stand Would be to me essential, If thou
and thy white arms were there And the fall to doom a long way."
"If war be kind," wrote a clever reviewer, when the second volume
appeared, "then Crane's verse may be poetry, Beardsley's black and
white creations may be art, and this may be called a book";--a smart
summing up that is cherished by cataloguers to this day, in describing
the volume for collectors. Beardsley needs no defenders, and it is fairly
certain that the clever reviewer had not read the book, for certainly
Crane had no illusions about the kindness of war. The title-poem of the
volume is an amazingly beautiful satire which answers all criticism.
"Do not weep, maiden, for war is kind. Because your lover threw wild

hands toward the sky And the affrighted steed ran on alone, Do not
weep. War is kind.
"Hoarse, booming drums of the regiment, Little souls who thirst for
fight, These men were born to drill and die. The unexplained glory flies
above them, Great is the battle-god, and his kingdom-- A field where a
thousand corpses lie.
* * * * *
"Mother whose heart hung humble as a button On the bright splendid
shroud of your son, Do not weep. War is kind."
Poor Stephen Crane! Like most geniuses, he had his weaknesses and
his failings; like many, if not most, geniuses, he was ill. He died of
tuberculosis, tragically young. But what a comrade he must have been,
with his extraordinary vision, his keen, sardonic comment, his
fearlessness and his failings!
Just a glimpse of Crane's last days is afforded by a letter written from
England by Robert Barr, his friend--Robert Barr, who collaborated with
Crane in "The 0' Ruddy," a rollicking tale of old Ireland, or, rather, who
completed it at Crane's death, to satisfy his friend's earnest request. The
letter is dated from Hillhead, Woldingham, Surrey, June 8, 1900, and
runs as follows:--
"My Dear ----
"I was delighted to hear from you, and was much interested to see the
article on Stephen Crane you sent me. It seems to me the harsh
judgment of an unappreciative, commonplace person on a man of
genius. Stephen had many qualities which lent themselves to
misapprehension, but at the core he was the finest of men, generous to a
fault, with something of the old-time recklessness which used to gather
in the ancient literary taverns of London. I always fancied that Edgar
Allan Poe revisited the earth as Stephen Crane, trying again,
succeeding again, failing again, and dying ten years sooner than he did
on the other occasion of his stay on earth.

"When your letter came I had just returned from Dover, where I stayed
four days to see Crane off for the Black Forest. There was a thin thread
of hope that he might recover, but to me he looked like a man already
dead. When he spoke, or, rather, whispered, there was all the
accustomed humor in his sayings. I said to him that I would go over to
the Schwarzwald in a few weeks, when he was getting better, and that
we would take some convalescent rambles together. As his wife was
listening he said faintly: 'I'll look forward to that,' but he smiled at me,
and winked slowly, as much as to say: 'You damned humbug, you
know I'll take no more rambles in this world.' Then, as if the train of
thought suggested what was looked on before as the crisis of his illness,
he murmured: 'Robert, when you come to the hedge--that we must all
go over-- it isn't bad. You feel sleepy--and--you don't care. Just a little
dreamy curiosity--which world you're really in--that's all.'
"To-morrow, Saturday, the 9th, I go again to Dover to meet his body.
He will rest for a little while in England, a country that was always
good to him, then to America, and his journey will be ended.
"I've got the unfinished manuscript of his last novel here beside me, a
rollicking Irish